Warverse Epilogue
by J.A. Carlton
Summary: Awakened in the wee hours with the sense that something is wrong Dean struggles pinpoint exactly where and how it all went wrong. The last Warverse fic .
1. Chapter 1

SPN WarVerse Epilogue:

By: sifi

OOooOO

My name is Dean Winchester and there's something wrong with my life. Not anything monstrous or anything. Maybe not even something all that important but yeah, even if it's not important, it's important y'know?

See, I'm a hunter just like our father was. Instincts are the one thing a hunter can't afford to ignore and mine are telling me something isn't right, is maybe, in fact a long way away from right. I'll figure it out though.

Who's we? We is me and my little brother Sam. He's four years younger than me and pretty much a mopey ball of emo. He's always hated the hunting life.

What's to like right? Crappy roach filled motels, every meal adding to the eventual death by stroke or heart attack, well you _can _eat healthy, Sammy's proof of that, but what's the point? I mean live healthy so you can die nasty? No thanks. I'll enjoy my bacon cheeseburgers and hope to go out like a hunter should, taking down something evil and maybe saving someone in the process. After all, it's what we were raised to do.

But there _are _women. Lots of 'em. Course it helps I'm a good lookin' guy. Sam's not bad, but he's more of a 'connection' kinda guy. Me? I'm a 'let's get off together and go our separate ways' kinda guy, hey I'm not a dick, I mean where's the fun if the chick isn't having any y'know? Sometimes though you run across a different kind of chick. A girl. The kind you almost wish you could come back to some day. I hate it when that happens. It hurts. Yeah. It hurts.

Look at him curled on his side, his knees accordion-folded up into his chest, I can't help but remember a time when the nickname 'runt' was appropriate. That was a long time ago though. Kid shot past me by the time he ran away to college. Yeah, he had to run away to go to college. I told you, he always hated the hunting life, but dad wasn't exactly sympathetic, hell no, not John Winchester. Last thing anyone could call him was sympathetic. In fact, he was frequently a downright bastard. And I used to worship every breath he took. Hmmm I wonder how I realized he was just a pathetic, flawed, lost son of a bitch doing the best he could to teach his kids the best he knew how, to stay safe in a world most folks can't acknowledge and stay sane. Course no one ever accused us of being sane.

Anyway, getting back to Sam, the kid well... he's not really a kid anymore. He's twenty nine and an easy four inches taller than me, makes me look friggin average height! Little bastard! (As a big brother it's my God Given right to always refer to him as a 'little' bastard!) Not to mention the 40 lbs of pure muscle he's got on me. I'd hate to come across him in a dark alley as something he was hunting. I can't help smiling at him though. Whatever else he does, he makes me proud to call him my brother. Believe it or not, I'm pretty sure I've actually told him that once or twice. Something deep inside tells me so even though I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be like me to come out and say it. Huh.

So, getting back to this weird feeling in the pit of my guts here, I think it's what woke me up.

"What's wrong with you?" Sam asks cracking an eye open at me.

"I don't know."

"You don't know? Dude, it's just another hangover you'll get over it. Take some aspirin and go back to bed." He groans. Seriously, he used to be such a cheerful baby, content, smiley, genuinely happy at least sorta, until that Christmas anyway. The one where he found dad's journal and learned that monsters are real and that Santa Claus was a myth (I told him that part. I still regret it a little, but I always told myself I'd never lie to him so when he asked, I just couldn't y'know?).

"Did I drink last night?" I ask cause I really can't remember (which oddly only seems to happen if I _don't_ drink... weird). Seems like I should taste it in the back of my throat or something if I drank, let alone the dozen or so it'd take to give me a hangover Sam would notice.

"You drink every night... just about." Finally he sits up and scratches his head looking around. "You cleaned up?"

"I just woke up, there's no empties." I point to the table and the pizza box with the waxy looking gobs of cheese hardened to the inside and the three big-toe sized cockroaches waving their antenna's around, _probably signaling to the other roaches to come out and join the harvest._

"Remember to shake out your shit I don't want those bastards in the car."

"I see 'em." He nods looking around, "So what's got your shorts in a bunch at..." he squints at the clock, yeah he's gonna need glasses one day too. I'm not sure he even knows I wear 'em once in a while, they're just over the counter magnifiers but they help after a long day of research, "5:27 a.m."

"Maybe a dream?" I shake my head unsure. This is sooo weird! We don't talk dreams, not unless they're his visions s'been a while since he had one though, ever since I killed old yellow eyes in the cemetery and set dad free from hell, but that's a whole other story.

"Nightmare?" he asks shoving off the bed and waddling stiffly toward the bathroom. He does that y'know, waddles till his kinks smooth out. I think we both do actually, maybe it's part of the life, maybe it's the mileage like Indy says.

"I don't know, it didn't feel like a nightmare but it felt wrong man. Stressful, like something we shouldn't be doing, or shouldn't have to do, or..."

"So we were both in your dream? What were we hunting?" he asks from the dark. Neither of us wants the lights on yet, it's too early I mean hell, the sun's not even awake yet.

"We weren't, I think we were being hunt_ed_."

He leans back and looks out at me, our eyes find each other even in the darkness. "You heard me." I say.

"Well, it's not that odd, every hunter gets hunted once in a while. Do you know by what?"

That's where I get all sticky inside. My lungs have suddenly shrunk, my heart starts to trot and as embarrassing as it is to admit, even to myself, I think I'm about to crap my jammies. I'm only thirty three. When I picked Sam up from Stanford, ripped him out of the life he was trying to build, (one that would have taken him away from me, left me all on my own, maybe to turn out worse than Rufus, he'll I'd've been dead within a year if he hadn't come with, I would've made sure of it.) I was twenty six. Where the hell did the last seven years go?

"Dean?"

"Mm," something's stuck in my throat. I don't wanna answer him. I mean I really don't... ahh shit, there's that volcanic flow of lava right down my intestinal tract. Nope, this isn't gonna wait. I leap out of bed, shove Sam from the bathroom and slam the door just in time. I hate it when this happens. _Maybe I did drink last night. _I feel around inside my head but there's no ache. I taste my mouth but there's no sour sting. This isn't right.

"Jesus dude what the hell?" Sam calls from outside the door as I explode in the darkness.

"Bad Sam. Big evil, big bad evil... yed times ten thousand." I groan.

"Are you shittin' me?" he asks then mutters, "Sorry."

That's one of Sammy's best qualities if you ask me, not that he takes responsibility for the sun rising and setting, but he doesn't think of his sensitivity as a weakness. Thank God for that cause dad sure didn't have anything to do with it, if it'd been up to him me and Sam'd be just a couple of robots working by some odd conglomeration of rote and either deduction or induction, whichever would be weighed to be appropriate for the moment. _I gotta stop watching Bones_ I think as my body finally stops exploding. I haven't felt this bad since the impala got t-boned, or since I realized dad traded his soul for my life. Stupid ass hole.

_I haven't felt this bad since the impala got t-boned, or since I realized dad traded his soul for my life._ I think knowing it's not right. It's the truth, but it's not right. "Sam?"

"You okay?"

"Yeah," _I think, _"When was the last time either of us was sick or wounded?" Finally my body's done. I turn on the fan but not the light, wash my hands, splash around a bit and step on a crispy big-toe sized body that squishes crunchily under my bare foot. _Is crunchily a word?_ "Sick." But I scrape my foot clean and really don't care as I leave the bathroom closing the door behind me and make sure to shake out the sheets before I hop back in bed.

Sam's sitting on his with the laptop throwing a ghostly glow on his planes and angles, but he's wearing his, 'I'm thinking' face. I can't help but smile as it turns into his, 'That can't be right' face.

"So? When?"

"Aside from the normal..."

"Choking, partial concussions and shit... I'm talking about something near death or at least hospital worthy."

He shakes his head, reaches down and tosses me a water from his bag. At the edges of the window the sky is lavender. Yeah I know, I shouldn't know that color but to hell with it, I can even identify periwinkle if I'm pressed. Sue me.

"Well there was..." he stops and tilts his head to the side, scratching just above his temple. It makes him look like a kid trying to puzzle out something sticky. "No..." he cocks his head to the side, "I don't know, I think it was when the impala got t-boned." But there's something in his expression that I know.

"What?" I ask. I want to know but I don't wanna lead him.

"It's gonna sound really weird Dean."

"That's okay."

"It doesn't _feel _right. I'm gonna turn on the light."

A second later we're both squinting, I got my hand over my eyes.

"What's that?" he asks pointing at me.

_Oh shit...friggin roaches!_ I flap the sheets and start swatting at myself and shaking my head, it's a girlie reaction I know, but man I friggin HATE roaches! But it's not like there was a lot of choice when we pulled in this morning, I could hardly see straight. _What time did we pull in? _But I don't remember. "Hey, when did we pull in?" I ask.

My eyes can't help but lock on something. Something odd. It's on my left hand. On my ring finger. "What the fuck?!" I bark, yeah it really comes out like that, and pull it off.

I turn on my own bedside light and hold it underneath. It's pretty. Smokey gray, _tungsten carbide, but where does the red come from?_ It's smooth and glassy and perfect and it looks like its somehow breathing, _like it's alive._

"Lemme see." Sam asks holding out his hand. Strangely enough I'm reluctant to flip it to him. I don't want to let it go.

He rolls his eyes and comes to me. "It's beautiful."

"Yeah." I hand it to him but can't take my eyes off it as he tests its fit over his fingers one at a time. Oddly I'm relieved when it doesn't fit any of them right.

"Where'd you get that again?" he asks.

I shake my head, _I've always had it._ "I think I've always had it."

"Did Cassie give it to you?"

A laugh bubbles up out of my chest, _so THAT's what it feels like._ "No friggin way dude, very not that woman's style."

Sam shakes his head and his face gets that 'lemon pucker' look I first saw when mom tried to feed him pureed beets for the first time. _You've always been more into salt than sweet._

"What?" I ask, I love the way his mind works even if I do wind up feeling inadequate. Wow it really sucks to acknowledge that your own baby brother makes you feel inadequate, in ANY capacity. But I'm not dumb, or something inside says I'm not, or I could be smarter than I think I could be. It doesn't matter. What matters is I've got my very own Professor Peabody right here with me and together we're a helluva team.

He shakes his head but give it a second, he'll spill, he always does.

"It's weird. I'm trying to think..."

"Don't strain yourself." I can't help myself, my mouth has always tried to hide it when my guts don't feel right. "Sorry."

He shakes it off like he always does. _God thank you for giving me Sam as a little brother and not some self righteous dick. _

"Think backwards Dean, everything we've done since dad died. The Croatoan virus, Gordon, zombie girlfriends, tulpa's, werewolves, the devils gate..."

"The Devil's gate!" that hit something in my head! Maybe it's cause where I finally put a bullet in that yellow eyed son of a bitch and set dad free! Whatever he might've been he didn't deserve to go to hell! All of a sudden I can't breathe again. My stomach clenches and I launch myself off the bed again.

Visions of Sam turning blue over the course of days, laying still, stony, _DEAD!_ My mind screams at me. Yeah laying dead on a filthy mattress it breaks my heart to lay him on but I can't let him go. I can't. I just... can't.

Retch explodes out of me, _shit I wish I had something to puke up! _

"Dean?" Sam asks from the door. He steps in and turns on the lights.

"You were dead Sam! You were fucking dead! I couldn't stop it... I couldn't... but..." I can't catch my breath.

"Hey hey, easy Dean. Easy." He drops to my side and drops an arm across my back. "It's okay, it's okay. You made a deal, with the crossroad demon remember? You brought me back remember?"

_Oh shit!_ Another rope of spew hits the water, I hate this, I hate feeling weak, I hate casting doubt on Sam's perception of me. I hate giving him reason to think less of me. I nod. I remember.

"Yeah. Yeah. I remember..." I breathe and finally settle on my heels. "Sam?"

"Yeah?"

I turn and look into his eyes after wiping my mouth clean, I can feel water dripping out of my eyes as dread fills every corner I have. "Something's wrong Sam. Something is really really wrong!"

He swallows hard and nods. His huge hand feels hot and sweaty against my back but right now I wouldn't trade it for a second, I'll take any kind of comfort I can get right now, even if it comes from the one person I'm supposed to take care of. "Yeah. I think you might be right."

OOooOO

Tbc

Please R&R

A/N I know it's only an epilogue but I just want to close out my little warVerse well. Please let me know ... Thanks. A Loohht.

sifi


	2. Chapter 2

Warverse Epilogue Chpt 2

By: sifi

A/N - There's been a couple questions about whether this is an actual epilogue or what. It is. It just happens to be a story too. I hope by the time it's all over (should be 3 or 4 chapters total) that everything will make sense and reach a suitable resolution.

If not. I fully expect to hear about it. Please. And Thank you. I hope you enjoy reading as much as I've enjoyed writing.

OOooOO

Have I mentioned how much I friggin hate roaches? I shake the little bastard out of my jacket and stomp the shit out of it now that I've got my boots on, I'm a lot tougher.

"So what do we do Dean?" Sam asks. At least he's trying not to laugh.

"Well Jesse's not gonna get any safer with us just standing here. You'd think hellside woulda given up on snatching him by now."

"Demons, always trying to get the upper hand right? Question is what makes us think we can protect him any better than he can protect himself, or that Bobby can?"

"Kid'll protect Bobby, but Bobby's the only guy left alive I'd trust to teach him."

"Yeah good point." Sam nods and finishes packing his stuff. He folds, I roll. "Why is that?" he asks taking me by surprise.

"Why what?"

"Why's Bobby the only one that's left that we'd trust with him?"

"Cause Meg killed Cal and Jim, Rufus got himself dead when..." I scratch my head, "When exactly was that?"

Sam shrugs, "Not too long ago, within the last couple years... were we there?"

I shake my head, "You're asking a man who can't remember if he drank last night if he remembers..." I shake my head at Sam's almost apologetic look, "and Tommy and Shep are up at Buck's place looking after those Emerson kids..." it's a laundry list of dead and gone one time friends or allies. It makes me sad somewhere inside, but not close enough to the surface for me to really feel anything. That alone should be disturbing but instead it's a blessing?

"Ellen's dead, so's Jo." He adds frowning.

For some reason this stops me short, "That's right. Hell hound. Got Jo, Ellen stayed behind with her, bought us a chance to get away." I look hard at Sam, drawing a blank, "What were we after?"

"Hell if I remember," Sam shrugs still frowning as we get into the car. "But yeah. Meg brought a pack of 'em. What was she doing with 'em?"

"Trying to send me back to hell if I recall correctly." It dawns on me then like it sometimes does, _I've been to hell. I traded my soul to get Sammy back, I got a year for the deal. Then I was a chew toy. So why am I here?_

"Sam."

"Dean." We meet eyes. Yeah we're both wearing the same expression. "There's something hinkey going on here."

"I was in hell."

"Yeah," he nods. "I watched that fuckin' thing tear you to ribbons, I buried your body."

"Not that I'm not grateful 'cause I think hell was pretty... well hellish... but why, well how am I here?" None of this makes sense and it's a lot like not knowing you're eating swiss cheese till you get to the hole. I don't know what's missing or why or how, or even if anything really is. _Calm down!_ I do, but only for Sam.

"Alright, so we get to Bobby's, put out some brainwaves to the kid, give him the low down and at least give him the chance to come in from the cold and see if he wants to learn what we can teach him." I breathe just a little easier, it's always just a little easier with a plan.

"Was it Bobby with us the last time we met him?" Sam asks.

"Nah, he was in the chair by then."

"I coulda swore there was someone with us."

The crinkle's getting a little too familiar now, starting to feel a little like those lines are gonna get etched between my eyebrows permanently. But what's really disturbing is that I think he's right but can't for the life of me think of who it coulda been so like any sensible person I start going through the alphabet, _Adam, Ash (dead), Alex (Bentley, dead) (Thurman,) nope, Arden? Alice? Ben, Barry, Bruce, Bart, Caryn, Caleb (dead), Calvin, Cassie, Chris, Chris (Menke dead), Carter, Carver (Edlund? I have no clue who that is) damned good thing I'm good with names. Chloe, Clayton, Derek, Dale, David... I'll figure it out so help me God I'll figure it out!_

OOooOO

God I'm tired. But at least we're close to Bobby's, still, not close enough. My eyelids feel like there's fishing weights dangling from 'em. _They're gonna close and we're gonna die._ I pull over. Sam looks at me his face full of that pouty curiosity he gets sometimes.

"Drive." I mumble climbing over him as he slides behind the wheel.

"You okay?"

"Quit asking me that."

"Sorry." I can feel the frown on his face. My head settles into the crotch of the seat and the door and I'm gone before he can shift the car into drive.

_I can feel myself screaming but there's no sound. Something's wrong, insanely wrong. No! No, you can't do this! Sam turns to me, those blue greens I've counted on a thousand times staring right through me, cold and piercing. Christ I feel like I've been run through! Sam? What is it? What's wrong with you man?_

_I get a flash of him decked out in this cheesy white suit, like something from a dream but then it's gone and he's just staring at me again. _

"_No!" I shake my head, it's something catastrophic. It's something 'oh my GOD- worthy'. He's gone darkside. _

"_No!" I have to say it again. _

"_Yeah." _

"_The seal man, the tat, you... nothing gets past it!" _

"_That's right." There's something in his icy smirk, "Not without my say-so." _

_My eyes sting, 'oh god no...' "No..." now it's in the back of my nose, clusters of stinging pricks that come with crying. I hate crying, the only purpose it serves is that moment of clarity that comes after it's begun and the inside pressure's ebbing away._

"_Sammy no, please God no!" I realize I'm on the floor, probably been tossed into a wall again. _

"_God will not help you. The only thing that can change anything is if you say 'yes' and I know you Dean. You won't." he straightens up, from all around he's surrounded by demons. I know they're waiting to do his bidding. "So go. Go look at the world your arrogance has left behind. Revel in it brother, and when you're done... come to me. I'll make the pain go away." _

_He's smug. He turns his back on me. I raise my gun, cock the hammer. The gun quakes in my hand. He doesn't even pause as he walks away, his demonic acolytes sneering and deriding me as they too leave me unharmed. _

"_Sam! SaMMY! Fight him Sam! Push him out!" I call but it's no use. He's gone. My brother, my baby, the life that was entrusted to me twenty nine and a half years ago is gone. (there's something wrong with that math, it feels like so much longer, like 'ages' kind of long) I think. But then I realize something else too, I failed. _

_He said all I had to do was say 'yes' to what? To who? What do I need to do to undo this? To get my brother, my boy...why does he feel like my son? Back? _

_I can't breathe. A minute later I'm sitting here, alone, without my brother, without Sam, no reason to live, no reason to fight. There's nothing. Except there's something. Something deep. Something hot and angry. It's mine and it's not mine. It's me and it's not me. It's ancient and it's powerful. But there's something else too, and it wants me but I can say this. I don't want IT. Whatever it is._

"_Sam!" I yell somehow leaping to my feet. "Get your ass back here! I'm not done with you yet!" I snarl. _

_The demonic acolytes fall away. _

_Sam turns. Something dark in his smile but something bright in his eyes. That brightness is cause for hope. _

_Something is pushing me from the inside, it's growing and it's going to kill me and I'm okay with it cause it's going to save Sam. What about the world? Without Sam there is no world. _

_My breath stutters along with my heart. I haven't felt this since the rawhead incident. I don't much like it. But it's going to save Sam. It's going to save my world. _

_The thing wearing my brother, (I swear it's the devil himself and that same something deep inside tells me I'm right) is doomed. It just doesn't know it yet. _

"_Dean." He smiles. _

"_Guess again Cherub." Something says using my mouth. _

_The smile falters but only for a second. It doesn't know it just lost the game. I felt its doubt, it's over. It only has to be played through. _

_It's curious. It thinks it knows. _

_My hand reaches out and is batted away, the other slams into Sam's chest, 'thank God he works out like he does!' I think as his body flies down the corridor to slam into the far wall. _

_His body falls, plaster dust drizzles down onto him. I'm almost there, this thing inside me is furious. This is an unusual state for it. Somehow I'm certain of it. _

_He rises as if by wires and dusts himself off. He smiles, Sam's hand rises toward me and the pressure starts to build. _

_OOooOO_

Tbc.

Please R&R

Thanks. Sifi.


	3. Chapter 3

Warverse Epilogue – chpt 3

By: sifi.

A/N - Special love and thanks to everyone who's stuck with my little verse and kept coming back for more even when no one was sure of where things were going. (sometimes even me! Those winchester boys can be very mysterious!) I hope they bring me more adventures to share. This is the final chapter of the Epilogue. If anything is unclear please let me know.

Thanks, and thanks again for being here!

Love and respect!

sifi.

OOooOO

'_Why'd you do it Sam? Why in the hell after everything we've been through did you let that fucker in?' the question puzzles me for a moment as the pressure builds inside. But I can't tell whether it's Lucifer's doing or if it's me. And then as if I never forgot, I know everything, (including why and how we forgot everything, and now I know what I should have known then.). _

_The are no holes. 'This happened. This was real.' I know as my body flies back down the corridor. _

_That ancient something that (yes I'm going to say it cause it's totally fuckin' appropriate) VEXED me just a few minutes ago is ME. And now I know why Sam said 'yes'. Because he believes in me, because we knew he had to. _

_The only way out, is through. _

_The men we were seven years ago were so different than the men we became. How things happened the way they did, the 'why' of it, the truth of who we are and have always been, it's us, it's always been us and we came to accept that it would always BE us. Believe it or not, we're okay with it. But we'll get back to that later, right now we're trying to kill each other. _

_See, we didn't make the rules, but the rule is that Sammy has to die, so I'm going to kill him, well actually it's Lucifer I'm going to kill, Sam just happens to be the body he's in. Which actually serves exactly as it's meant to. Y'know if I ever run into Castiel's 'Father' I'm gonna punch it right in the face._

_Sam knew how to kill demons, still does, in spite of it all Ruby served her purpose but no way in hell would I ever tell him that, well maybe if I got really drunk and was feeling really sentimental. But there's only a few things that can kill angels the two most important being other angels, and the right kind of God. (I'm not talking some watered down and assimilated woods gods here, I'm talking about the kind of god that has the power of creation. I'm talkin' about me.)_

_I barely feel it as I push up, standing toe to toe with a cast down cherub joy-riding in my son's vessel. Oh yeah, this little bastard needs a serious butt whoopin'._

_The energy rolls up, actually it just kinda 'becomes there' when I need it. It's been a long time since I killed anything like this. Close to about 3 millennia really, yeah I think it was about a thousand years before Christ was born. _

"_That the best you got?" the Dean in me asks. _

_It's weird, like something choreographed as we both throw at the same time. And I do mean throw as in power, it's a sensation I'd almost forgotten, like so much else. _

_The wall takes another chunk out of me but Sam's body flies, I wince watching him ricochet back the way he came. _

_We're both a little slower to get up, but I'm faster throwing this time. I'm older, more experienced and even if a little rusty, I know my boy is in there bunging up that petulant angel. Seem's many of them have become petulant over the centuries. _

_I grimace, holding my boy's body to the wall. I can feel Lucifer squirming inside him trying to get away from power more ancient than he can conceive of. But between the tat, Sam, Marduk and me he doesn't stand a chance. 'I wish I didn't have to kill your body son. I hate to see you die again.'_

_There's a war going on inside my boy. I can feel it. Marduk and Sam are holding on with everything they've got, doing their damnedest to keep that angry ex-angel inside. See, now I understand why even though he's psychic and all, it's taken him that much longer for the two of them to become one. They knew they'd need their separate strengths to hold this little fucker inside so I could do what I had to. _

_I can feel his body dying, his heart leaping and skipping. Going into what doctors call 'atrial fibrilation' as the angel fights for freedom now, caring less about having a vessel than a life at all. This is why it had to be Sam and why I had to be the one to kill him. _

_It never bothered to consider that it would lose but like the old saying goes, 'pride goes before the fall', and because of it I have to take a life before its time, sorta. _

_That's always been the worst part of being a god, it's different when it's mercy, but when folly is the cause it's more than a little sad. _

_He's gasping now, Sam that is. And inside me Dean is despairing, but even so we both know I can't stop, not just yet. We are creatures of creation he and I, this intentional destruction is truly abhorrent to our very natures. _

"_Dean please..." Lucifer gasps as Sam's color goes from red to purple, first kind of a magenta as his capillaries burst both in and around his eyes. _

"_Father..." he chokes next. _

_We force ourselves to turn a deaf ear. _

_The vessel is almost dead now. Finally my power reaches the angel. _

_A vein of white that is the angel's essence, shoots through a crack that zigs across the human chest. _

_I stand only inches away from a man who has been everything important to me through ages most would never believe. He's been my son, my king, my brother and best friend. He was the first creation of my own soul's purest joy. _

_I hear the final beat of his heart. Tears slide down my face. _

_Cracks spiderweb through the now dead body in a palm leaf pattern of destruction the angel's mistress dew into his flesh. _

_Dark streams and rivers of de-oxygenated blood ooze from everywhere, down his cheeks from his eyes, over his mouth from his nose and down his chin from his mouth. _

_Inside me Dean is still and silent. _

_Only his heart speaks, begging for this to be banished from memory. Everything from Marduk, and me, everything from the moment they first suspected Sam's destiny; he wants it all back the way it was 'before'. I can do that but he doesn't understand the full extent of what he's wishing. Which is why I'm showing him this now, before it's too late to make it right. _

_White light explodes out of Sam's body then turns red, then blue, then violet as the essence of the angel evaporates, returning to the unbound energy that all things are created from. It has been unmade. _

_Its final scream weakens the structure we're in. Chunks of ceiling and masonry fall all around me. I will not move until every last vestige of that sinister cherub is gone. Even when Sam's body 'thuds' to the floor, his blood oozing out of a thousand different tears, his shattered bones grinding like crystal shards inside his skin, I do not move until the deed is done. _

_This is why it had to be us. Why it had to be me. _

_Finally as the building rains down around us I sense nothing left of the cherub and nothing left of my son. _

_The darkness, debris and flood of tears have left me blind. I fall to my knees and gather my boy in my arms. _

"_We're through it. It's done. The destinies are fulfilled." _

_Dean's anguish shatters this little corner of the world. A cry of pure despair echoes through what's left of the structure. _

_I give all I have. The will of life flows into the broken body I hold. _

_We know we will bring him back. We know it's why we had to be the one to take his life so we could give it back, but Dean's been human for a long human time, and in spite of my own certainty, over there, in some far away corner a flicker of doubt actually tried to make its way into my mind. _

_But this is the best part of being a god. Creation is beauty, creation through love is joy. _

"_Come back to me son, it's time now." Coaxing life forward is a delicate task. _

_Warmth flows from me, heating the lifeless flesh, mending broken bone and drawing back the souls of the house. They're together, finally one as Dean and I will be once this is done. _

_Their fear, born of the uncertainty of their human experience has changed the history of them. _

_When they return to the world I will give them a single last gift as an individual entity. _

_With the deed now done, they've no need to fear Lucifer, or destiny, or the destruction of the world, but fear is not so easily shaken off. _

_If they so choose, they will have one chance to either remember it all, or to cast it all away. From the moment I first made Dean aware that he and Sam were destined for something greater than they'd ever considered, even before that, from the moment Dean's body, broken and dying was brought to her, the woman we are incomplete without, everything can be undone. _

_Sam will not recall ever having suffered at Lilith's talons, or the heartbreak of leaving his own first born son in the hands of someone else._

_Neither of them will recall that they each had someone to whom they finally could belong, and instead will live as they always have, moving rootless with none but each other to share and experience life with. _

_Of course they can choose to breathe, relieved that they have done what they were 'destined' to do and can now have a choice in the lives they want, they can experience wholeness, fulfillment or they can live knowing always that something is not as it should be. _

_I know what I would choose. But to truly become part of the living man I will let him decide._

OOooOO

'_Holy fuckin' shit!'_ My eyes snap wide open, I figure I oughtta be panting like I've run a dozen flights of stairs holding my breath but I'm not. _'It really happened... it's really done? Can we be that lucky?'_ I can't help but wonder cause let's face it, we're Winchesters, Winchester luck sucks. _'But that's not all we are.'_

"Dean? You okay?" Sam asks next to me.

"Son of a bitch..." I sigh and as much as it drives me nuts, I can't stop the tears. I can feel Sam's shattered body in my arms, and I remember everything.

This time I get the 'lemon pucker pouty frown' the whole shebang as he does a double take and eases my baby to the shoulder of the road. "Dean? What? What is it?"

It takes a few seconds, we stare into each others' eyes like when we were kids wondering who was going to blink first. Sam was surprisingly good at staring contests I think a lot of the time he actually let me win. But this isn't about confrontation, this is about something different, something huge! Something awesome in fact and I can't even think about stopping the smile that just crawled out onto my face.

"Dean?" he asks. He's intrigued, his voice just turned gentle. He's ready.

I can't say it, not even sure I have the words to explain it, especially not right now, but I know what to do.

I can feel my mouth work a little bit, _'what do I say?'_

"Dean what is it?" I can feel him getting a little nervous now.

"We don't have to be scared anymore Sam."

His face goes through the familiar expressions, the furrowed brows, the deeper pucker, the 'is he screwing with me?' face.

"Huh?" he asks.

My hand reaches out, my palm falls to his forehead and my eyes close. I share it all with him. I don't know how I know to do it, but I kinda do cause it's just part of me. Like everything we almost threw away.

The world goes bullet-time around us. Everything grinds to a halt as it all floods into him. He's breathing hard like he's run a marathon, maybe even like I mighta been while Enki reminded me.

A second later he leans back gasping for breath and swallowing hard in rapid succession.

"Guh... wha... my god Dean... what did we almost do?" he breathes before his eyes bulge wide, "Neil! I can raise my son?"

Dean could feel the younger man daring to hope for the first time in far too long. "But what about my vision?"

"Maybe it'll come true, maybe it won't. I'm betting it won't."

"I want my son Dean. I want Kitsune. But..." Sam shook his head.

"There's still evil things to be hunted."

Sam nods and swallows hard, _can it really be?_

"Do you know what this means Dean?"

"It means we're gonna call our girls and throw us one helluva party! Then after the hangover's are gone we're gonna get your kid back and see what kind of a life we wanna make for ourselves Sam. It means we have a choice!" Dean could barely contain his excitement as he crawled over his little brother, "move over."

They traded places as the world around them burst awake in a shimmer that brought movement and time back to its rightful place.

"I always told you Sammy, we make our own destiny! Now do you believe me?" He grinned pressing the accelerator with undisputable expertise.

A smile for once free of tension peeked out at the corners of Sam's mouth as he nodded, pondering everything Dean just showed him. _How could we have wanted to forget the few things we really have that mean everything? _"Yeah Dean. I think I really do."

OOooOO

End.

Please R&R.

Thanks

Sifi.


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